xviii, 555 pages : 25 cm

Chronicles the political history of the space race, from its nineteenth-century beginnings with the rocketry pioneers to the Cold War competition, in which space became another area embraced by the U.S. and U.S.S.R

Includes bibliographical references (pages 466-536) and index

Pulitzer Prize, History, 1986

PART I The Genesis of Sputnik -- Chapter 1 The Human Seed and Social Soil: Rocketry and Revolution -- CHAPTER 2 Political Rains and First Fruit:The Cold War and Sputnik -Conclusion -- PART II Modern Arms and Free Men: America Before Sputnik -- CHAPTER 3 Bashful Behemoth: Technology, the State, and the Birth of Deterrence -- CHAPTER 4 While Waiting for Technocracy: The ICBM and the First American Space Program -- CHAPTER 5 The Satellite Decision -- Conclusion

PART III Vanguard and Rearguard: Eisenhower and the Setting of American Space Policy -- CHAPTER 6 "A New Era of History" and a Media Riot -- CHAPTER 7 The Birth of NASA -- CHAPTER 8 A Space Strategy for the United States -- CHAPTER 9 Sparrow in the Falcon's Nest -- CHAPTER 10 The Shape of Things to Come -- Conclusion

PART IV Parabolic Ballad: Khrushchev and the Setting of Soviet Space Policy -- CHAPTER 11 Party Line -- CHAPTER 12 The Missile Bluff -- CHAPTER 13 Hammers or Sickles in Space? -- CHAPTER 14 Space Age Communism: The Khrushchevian Synthesis -- Conclusion -- PART V Kennedy, Johnson, and the Technocratic Temptation -- CHAPTER 15 Destination Moon -- CHAPTER 16 Hooded Falcons: Space Technology and assured Destruction -- CHAPTER 17 Benign Hypocrisy: American Space Diplomacy -- CHAPTER 18 Big Operator: James Webb's Space Age America -- CHAPTER 19 Second Thoughts -- Conclusion

PART VI The Heavens and the Earth: The First Twenty-five Years -- CHAPTER 20 Voyages to Tsiolkovskia -- CHAPTER 21 The Quest for a G.O.D. -- CHAPTER 22 A Fire in the Sun

Pulitzer Prize for History, 1986

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